Human Events

Backdoor Amnesty Vote Today!

Gird your loins, people. It begins today. Harry Reid is hijacking major defense legislation and using it as a tool to pass amnesty. Reid’s testing the waters Tuesday afternoon, as he seeks to end debate (“cloture”) on the National Defense Authorization Act, which funds military operations for the fiscal year 2011. The Nevada senator has attached two outlandish provisions to the bill, one of which is called the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act essentially “creates a pathway to citizenship” for young illegal aliens who’ve been in the country for five years and crossed the border before the age of 16.

The politics are clear: Reid is in a tough reelection battle with Sharron Angle and hopes to galvanize Nevada’s coveted Hispanic vote by attaching a contentious amendment to a bill that has nothing to do with national defense. Reid and his liberal shills are touting the provision as a way to integrate illegal aliens into our culture, but in reality the DREAM Act would only encourage more illegal behavior and also drain our already-drained economy.

Here are three things you need to know about the DREAM Act.

1. Illegal immigration would increase, not decrease. Here’s a maxim that liberals don’t get. Rewarding bad behavior (in this case, illegal entry into the United States) will only foster more bad behavior (more illegal entry into the United States). Mexico already flouts our lax immigration system. If Reid and his boys get the Dream Act passed, every country will pretty much view our immigration enforcement as one, big joke (if they don’t already.)

2. Illegal aliens will now be eligible for in-state tuition while legal immigrants and natural-born citizens would be barred from such assistance. For instance, federal law currently mandates individual states cannot offer discounted tuition rates to illegal aliens “unless the state also offers in-state tuition rates to all U.S. citizens.” Under the Dream Act, that provision is scrapped. As an aside, someone should tell the “geniuses” in Washington that at a time when we’re facing anemic job growth and record deficits, creating another class of entitlements is probably not a good idea. Just sayin’.

3. And, lastly, the DREAM Act has the potential to create amnesty on steroids. These young illegal aliens are now qualified to “sponsor” their family members to obtain a green card, which would, in effect, leave open the possibility of not just “creating a pathway to citizenship” for a college-bound illegal, but for their parents, brothers, and sisters as well.

If Reid wants to have a debate on whether or not we should legalize two million high school graduates who crossed the border as kids, fine, let’s have a debate on it; but to attach such legislation to defense appropriations is tasteless and cowardly.